Spring needs a sacrifice. The blood moon squats low on the horizon.

She’s dreaming in pink and orange,

Stories of exsanguination,

Easter dreams.

She bleeds a deer, a vole, a man, any stray pest caught out in the night.

She exacts her tithe in dreams,

Blood seeps slowly from

The heart and brain.

You awake in a bed of galanthus. White flowers nod knowingly in the dark.

You will wait for morning, for the sun.

You will stay in the dark.

The blood moon lolls beside you, fat, pink, gorged and greedy.

Travelers who pass see only stars.

We saw the blood moon rising on our way home. She looked like an ill setting sun, fleshier and less flaming in pink and orange hues. Her size was enormous. We lost her behind the skyscrapers, and when we got home and sought her out again, she was risen and small and no different than any other full moon. We’d seen her at just the right moment.

Sacrifice is the essence of Christian mythology. Sacrifice is a wrong idea. Yet you can imagine the fear and inspiration of pre-literate humans beholding the blood moon’s ascent once you’ve seen it yourself. Modern humans who are spiritually illiterate yet capable of barking out some sort of language exploit childish fears about the blood moon and say she’s a harbinger of apocalypse. They don’t know the half of it.

She told me she’s much more personal than that. She said she’s not about apocalypse. She said she could tell me her secrets, but then she’d have to kill me. I said what are you, a Bond villain? She said Behold, I am a Hunter. Look upon my Flesh.

You know you better take a god serious when she starts capitalizing nouns.

We stayed our course heading homeward, glad not to be alone. Her hunt was over in a short time. When we saw her again, a pretty white frock covered her and made her seem small. We’d seen beneath the veil. Others that same night may have only seen stars.